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Utah
Utah is a western state of the United States. It was the 45th state admitted to the Union, on January 4, 1896. Approximately 80% of Utah's 2,736,424 people live along the Wasatch Front, centering on Salt Lake City. This leaves vast expanses of the state nearly uninhabited, making the population the sixth most urbanized in the U.S. Utah is bordered by Arizona on the south, Colorado on the east, Wyoming on the northeast, Idaho on the north and Nevada on the west. It also touches a corner of New Mexico. Utah is one of the most religiously homogeneous states in the Union. Between 58% and 72% of Utahans are reported to be members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints which greatly influences Utah culture and daily life. Utah in Days of Infamy Utah was the home of Orson Sharp, a U.S. Navy pilot cadet. He dutifully gave his life in the liberation of Hawaii from Japanese rule in 1943. Utah in The Hot War Utah's state government was decapitated when the Soviet Union destroyed its capital and largest city, Salt Lake City with an atomic bomb on March 2, 1951. It fell to the Federal government to call out the National Guard for the state.Bombs Away, pg. 170, ebook. Utah in The House of Daniel In the aftermath of the Great Zombie Riots in Denver June, 1934, Utah authorities set up check points on the boarder with Colorado, even though the riots had not spread beyond Denver.The House of Daniel, loc., 4373, ebook. The House of Daniel played several games in Utah throughout late June, 1934.Ibid. loc. 4409-4524. Utah in Southern Victory Utah's Mormon population staged several uprisings against the US, starting before the War of Secession. Generally, these uprisings occurred as a part of a larger war between the United States and the Confederate States. There were three major uprisings between 1881 and 1943. The first Mormon rebellion occurred during the Second Mexican War. The uprising itself was actually quite limited in its scope. Aside from cutting off telegraph and railroad lines from Utah to the rest of the U.S., the Mormons took very little direct action against the United States. General John Pope took control of the state quickly. He and his successor, Colonel George Armstrong Custer ruled the state with an iron fist. Custer in particular proved quite ruthless, killing many suspected polygamists, leaving behind an angry Mormon population, determined to gain independence. The second uprising came during the Great War in 1915. This rebellion was far more violent, as the Mormons fought to the last man against U.S. troops. Again, they were unsuccessful and the state was placed under the rule of the U.S. military. General Alonzo Kent was military governor from 1916 until 1924, and the second governor was General John Pershing. After he was assassinated by Mormon partisans, control fell to Colonel Abner Dowling, who, through both diplomatic and covert means, barely kept the state under control. When Al Smith was elected President of the U.S. in 1936, he returned all rights to the people of Utah in an attempt to gain good favor with them. This was unsuccessful as the Mormons rebelled a third time as the Second Great War raged. In 1943 U.S. forces were victorious over Mormon rebels once again. The U.S. government had had enough of the ongoing Mormon problem. After the fighting ended the U.S. government considered moving the Mormons out of Utah and to the Sandwich Islands, though this was later dismissed as impractical. Instead, Utah seemed destined to remain under an open-ended military occupation, similar to the far larger territories of Canada and the Confederacy. The Mormon rebels specialized in asymmetrical warfare, using terrorist tactics such as car and roadside bombs, as well as long-distance strikes with home-made spigot mortars. During the Second Great War, they began to use living humans with explosives strapped to them, which came to be called "people-bombs". The frighteningly random nature of these attacks struck fear into the hearts of US citizens, and when black guerrillas in the CSA adopted the method, even Jake Featherston was unsettled. Utah in Supervolcano Utah was badly hit when the Yellowstone Supervolcano erupted. Even though it was generally up-wind of the eruption, falling ash covered the state. No one was sure how many feet but the U.S. wouldn't have the fleet of bulldozers and trucks to remove it. Eruption, pgs. 222-223. Ruth Marquez was a geology graduate student working on her PhD at the University of Utah. Ibid, pg. 60. Utah in The Two Georges Literary Comment The fictional province of Disraeli comprises the entirety of Utah as well as portions of other OTL states. Utah in "Vilcabamba" The Krolp discovery of silver and a small amount of gold deep below the surface of northeastern Utah effectively voided the treaty between the rump United States and the Krolp. The silver and gold were within the borders of the U.S. The Krolp did not care, and wanted the silver and gold. Knowing that the Krolp's mining techniques would probably leave what remained of the U.S. and Canada uninhabitable, President Harris Moffatt III opted to fight the Krolp, rather than simply let them mine. That fight effectively spelled the end of the U.S. See also *Deseret, a historical proposed political entity related to modern Utah. References }} Category:US States Category:Days of Infamy Category:The Hot War Category:The House of Daniel Category:Southern Victory Category:Supervolcano Category:Vilcabamba